Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Retrospective Exhibition Additional Initiatives Section, Sally Brown, Lemley Mullett, Michael Sherwin

Art in the Libraries Retrospective: 2015-2024

The section of the WVU Art in the Libraries Retrospective (2015-2024) includes a summary of the program's special initiatives.

Retrospective: The Beginning, Section 1, Sally Brown, Linda Blake

Art in the Libraries Retrospective: 2015-2024

This section of the WVU Art in the Libraries Retrospective (2015-2024) exhibition includes the history of the Art in the Libraries Program, including the first exhibitions and the forming of the committee.

Intergenerational Practices Oral History Project, Christine Marks

Open Educational Resources

In this multi-lesson segment, we developed an oral history project on intergenerational practices. We began the semester by framing writing as a conversation to emphasize the dialogical nature of all writing. To prepare students for the practice of deep listening, we discussed an excerpt from Danielle Ofri’s What Patients Say, What Doctors Hear, which highlights the role of the listener as co-creator of meaning. We also discussed the chapter “practice” from Alexis Pauline Gumbs’ Undrowned: Black Feminist Lessons from Marine Mammals, Yiyun Li’s short personal essay “Orange Crush,” and Lily LaMotte and Ann Xu’s graphic novel Measuring Up to …

Les Perceptions Françaises De La Technologie Racontées À Travers Le Temps Avec Jacques Tati, Agnès Varda, Jr Et Michel Serres, Na'dyah Wynn

Honors Theses

Les perceptions françaises de la technologie racontées à travers le temps avec Jacques Tati, Agnès Varda, JR et Michel Serres (French Perceptions of Technology Told Through Time with Jacques Tati, Agnès Varda, JR et Michel Serres), explores the relationship between technology and society as depicted in French cinema. By analyzing the works of filmmakers Jacques Tati, Agnès Varda, and JR, the thesis examines how these directors themselves have portrayed the impact of technology on French culture and society over time. in the end, Michel Serres helps explain the changes of perception over time by comparing the works of the three …

#Booktok: Social Media’S Influence On Literature, Madison Hyatt

Honors Theses

Exploring the social media phenomenon, TikTok, and its influence on the community, #Booktok is the newest way readers stay up to date on new books, and what to read. Is this a good thing? A bad thing? And how has this new way of consuming books influenced reading and literature?

Departure From Magical Realism: Female Agency In Latin American Post-Boom Literature, Nicole Darian Llacza Morazzani

Honors Theses

his thesis explores depictions of female agency in post-colonial Latin American literature. I highlight three primary texts: Gabriel García Márquez's (1927-2014) 1967 One Hundred Years of Solitude, a canonical magical realist novel; Isabel Allende's (1942-present) 1982 The House of Spirits, her debut novel and a multi-generational story similar to Márquez's, and Isabel Allende's 2022 Violeta, a historical novel offering an autodiegetic narrative of a woman's 100 years of life in an unnamed South American country, to analyze how female characters evolve in response to changing sociopolitical landscapes and literary movements in Latin America. My central focus is Allende's most recent …

Taylor, Genealogy, History, Peter Hawes

Honors Theses

In this paper I compare two different genealogies of the idea of the ‘self’: Charles Taylor’s and Michel Foucault’s. I begin by arguing that Taylor’s focus on combating what he calls “subtraction stories” places him in the genealogical tradition with Foucault. I then engage with Foucault's genealogy of the self, which illuminates how the notion of the ‘self’ was constructed as a means of control, which leads him to say we should do away with trying to understand it outside of relations of power. This call for the rejection of the self, I suggest, presents a problem for us, who …

La Perception Et La Représentation Du Corps Des Femmes Africaines Par Rapport À La Colonisation Française, Mofiyinfoluwa Tunji-Ekundayo

Honors Theses

The thesis proposes an analysis of the perception that the French colonizers had towards the bodies of black women in France, women from northern Africa, and women from western Africa. Then, the work evaluates how this perception manifests in current French and francophone media. Furthermore, it traces how much influence these perceptions have on the depiction and representation of African female bodies. This influence could manifest as a reinforcement or an opposition to colonial perceptions.

Jurgen Comics Contest Newspaper And Artwork - Fall 2023, Julia Martinez

Jurgen Banned Art Comics Contest

Digital edition of the Jurgen Comics Contest broadsheet newspaper celebrating the Fall 2023 Contest winners. The newspaper design and supplemental artwork were created by contest student editor Julia Martinez. Supplemental promotional materials include a poster for an online information session.

The Fall 2023 Jurgen Comics Contest invited VCU students to explore a specific historical incident of censorship or suppression of visual art, books, music, film or performance.

Alexander The Lynkestian And The Thracians At Thebes: A Note On The Tale Of Timokleia, Sulochana Asirvatham

Department of Classics and General Humanities Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

The Thracians are a well-attested part of the Alexander’s army in Asia. But when, exactly, did they appear in the king’s force? The question is prompted by the story of Timokleia of Thebes, which is found in Plutarch (Alex. 12; De mul. virt. 24) and Polyainos (8.40) and happens to be the only source for Thracian presence in the Macedonian army before the Hellespont. During the Macedonian destruction of Thebes in summer 335, Timokleia is raped by a Thracian or a leader of the Thracians. The story is evidently designed to ennoble the figures of Alexander and Timokleia as idealized …

State Politics And Stress Amongst Lgbtq+ Students At Florida’S Private Colleges: A Psychological And Normative Analysis, Alise Fortune

Honors Program Theses

The recent wave of anti-LGBTQ+ politics and policies in Florida pose potential risks to the mental health and well-being of Florida’s LGBTQ+ students. The present study surveyed LGBTQ+ students attending private colleges in Florida to measure their self-reported stress levels in comparison to non-LGBTQ+ students, the level at which they believed specific sources of stress contributed to their stress levels, their level of distress upon experiencing discrimination, their sense of sexual identity distress, and their awareness of and involvement in advocacy against Florida’s anti-LGBTQ+ bills. Survey results suggested that anti-LGBTQ+ politics in Florida and the personal lives (social and family …

Practically Pooh In Every Way: A Look At Disney's Effect On Winnie-The-Pooh Pre- And Post- Public Domain, Peyton Poitras

Honors Program Theses

On Jan. 1, 2022, A.A. Milne’s willy, nilly, silly old bear entered the public domain, but this paper will argue why Disney's version will most likely retain its longevity despite additional competition. Disney's franchise-ation of Winnie the Pooh has left their iteration of the bear at the forefront of audience's minds. While Disney's version retains its iconic image of the bear, however, the release of the character into the public domain will allow others to utilize the bear in new ways. Such opens the door to a new question: How should characters be treated after entering the public domain? This …

You Got That From Where?: Unpacking Art Imperialism In Western Museums Through The Seated Scribe And The Bust Of Nefertiti, Emmy Shouse

Honors Program Theses

This thesis examines how major Western museums perpetuate colonial narratives in their displays of cultural property through analyses of the displays of two ancient Egyptian antiquities–the Seated Scribe and the Bust of Nefertiti. Despite stated goals of decolonization, institutions like the Louvre and Neues Museum prioritize object presentations glorifying Western imperial excavations and acquisitions over providing historical and cultural context about the objects' Egyptian origins. Sparked by site visits to Egyptian museums and subsequent visits to Berlin’s Neues Museum and the Louvre in Paris, this thesis contrasts disappointing imperialist displays of Egyptian antiquities in European institutions to each object’s full …

The Kingdom Of God In Selected Christian Living Education Modules Viewed Through Jesus Of Nazareth’S Vision Of The Reign Of God, Romela D. Sanga, Ferdinand D. Dagmang

Theology Department Faculty Publications

This article offers a study of Jesus’ Vision of the Reign of God as a foundation for the Christian Living Education Modules. Jesus of Nazareth’s ministry during the Roman Empire’s rule should be part of existing modules on God’s Kingdom as this would clarify the context of discipleship and ministry. Jesus, who lived and proclaimed God’s ruling presence, will be better understood and also grasped as a model if he is examined through historically-grounded studies, especially those written by Richard Horsley and other authors who are identified with the ‘Christology from below’ approach. Horsley’s scholarly studies could assist in a …

Queering The Tropics: A Cartography Of Tropical Materialism, Queer Ecology & Spectral Tropicality, Christian Jil Benitez, Gregory Luke Chwala, Anita Lundberg, S. N. Nyeck

Filipino Faculty Publications

This special issue entitled “Queering the Tropics” explores how queering as a methodology and gender and sexuality as a critical rubric complicate the study of the tropics and conceptions of tropicality. It also engages with how the tropics as a worldly zone, and the notion of tropicality as simultaneously material and imaginary, reconfigure notions of queer sexuality. In other words, our aim has been to study how the tropical might queer queerness itself. This is to attempt to understand queer as a way to initiate and pursue critical encounters with the tropical world—indeed to begin queering the tropics. This first …

The Boy With The Pet Dog, Allan N. Derain, Christian Jil Benitez

Filipino Faculty Publications

Set at the beginning of the hot season in the Philippines, when heat starts to crawl on skin, the short fiction “The Boy with the Pet Dog” (“Ang Batang May Alagang Aso”) stages an encounter between the titular character and a young man from the province who intends to work on his family’s farm. Queerness figures in the narrative as intimately entangled with class, and becomes articulable only through a language made possible by the tropics itself, in the form of butterflies coming out of chrysalises, brown bodies glowing with sweat, and swiftlets flocking mango trees. At the heart of …

Forgetting Stories From The Islands, Jeju And Calauit, Raymon D. Ritumban

English Faculty Publications

The traumatic experiences of people from peripheral islands are susceptible to mnemocide. Such erasure of memory is facilitated by “defensive and complicit forgetting,” which, according to Aleida Assmann, leads to “protection of perpetrators.” My paper reflects on the vulnerability of traumas from the islands to mnemocide by looking into [1] the massacre of communists and civilians on Jeju Island, South Korea in 1948 as described in Hyun-Kil Un’s short story “Dead Silence” (2017; English trans.) and [2] the eviction of residents and indigenous people from Calauit Island, Philippines for the creation of a safari in 1976 as imagined in Annette …

Research Bibliography For Philippine English (2008–2023), Kingsley Bolton, Priscilla T. Cruz, Isabel P. Martin

English Faculty Publications

The research bibliography presented here is intended to complement the earlier research bibliographies from Bautista on Philippine English (Bautista, 2004; Bautista & Bolton, 2008a). It includes 11 sections dealing with book-length studies of Philippine English, as well as book chapters and journal articles on such topics as code-switching, code-mixing and linguistic hybridization; critical linguistics; discourse analysis; language attitudes and intelligibility; sociolinguistic description; language policies; multilingualism and multilingual education; Philippine literature in English; Philippine English features; and summative perspectives. While the bibliography is essentially contemporary in orientation, this article also emphasizes the foundational contributions of earlier scholars in the field.

Queer Tropical Gothic: Parody, Failure, Space In Nick Joaquin’S “Gotita De Dragon”, Raymon D. Ritumban

English Faculty Publications

The stories for children by Filipino literary master Nick Joaquin (1917-2004), when compared to his famous works, have received scant attention even though they are as masterfully written and thematically sophisticated. Out of Joaquin’s fifteen children’s stories produced between 1972 and 1983, “Gotita de Dragon” stands out for its queer tropical gothic turn. The piece is a parody of a pious legend about Saint Martha, where the titular character is on a quest to become “as big as a gothic dragon,” which subsequently renders him “in search of a virgin.” The narrative is built upon the failures of its masculine …

To Busan And Beyond: Mobilities Of Korean War Trauma, Raymon D. Ritumban

English Faculty Publications

The Korean War (1950-1953) leveled the peninsula, losing and displacing millions of its people. Hundreds of thousands of Koreans from North and South found themselves in refugee camps in Busan. This traumatizing event is carefully delineated in Yi Hochol’s “Far from Home” and Han Musook’s “The Fragment.” Through an analysis of these short stories using Kate Coddington’s theory of contagious trauma, the paper forwards that the trauma caused by the war spreads, compounds, and expands within the infrastructures—namely, freight cars and warehouse—that facilitate the movements of refugees. In “Far from Home,” during the outbreak of the Korean War, four North …

Grid Culture, Eliot Bates, Arseni Troitski

Publications and Research

In this essay, we provide our initial ethnographic research about lines, which at a superficial level can be considered a platform, but which is also synonymous with a community of 8800 users, and with 606k unique posts authored by these users that in aggregate constitute a discourse network (Aufschreibesysteme, see Kittler 1990). lines—as platform, community, and discourse network—is primarily designed to support the development, documentation and user-generated code efforts specific to a set of hardware synthesis-related objects (the two we will focus on are called Norns and Grid; we’ll discuss what they are and what they do through the subsequent …

Laro Streetwear Fashion Minizine, Cyrell Faraon

Student Research Design & Innovation Symposium

In my Editorial and Publication course, I had the incredible opportunity to design a fashion streetwear minizine. Throughout this project, I focused on creating compelling content for articles and advertisements, while also pushing the boundaries of design and incorporating innovative styles. By utilizing various design elements such as illustration, photography, typography, and layout, I aimed to showcase my understanding of visual storytelling and create a unique and impactful publication. This hands-on experience allowed me to express my creativity and explore unconventional ideas, ultimately pushing the boundaries of traditional magazines.

Exploring The Integration Of Ai In Counseling, Briana Seippel, Shauna Bienvenue, Jaime Beers

Student Research Design & Innovation Symposium

In the evolving landscape of mental health care, the emergence of artificial intelligence (AI) has brought about significant shifts in the counseling landscape. This presentation explored the varied applications of AI in the counseling field, addressing its advantages, limitations, as well as legal, ethical, and multicultural concerns. Legal and ethical considerations highlighted the absence of regulations and standards for AI use and emphasized concerns for culturally sensitive applications that respect diverse backgrounds. The absence of regulations underscored the need for clear ethical and legal guidelines to safeguard client protection and confidentiality as well as to uphold professional excellence.

Driving Under The Influence In Ri Adolescents, Jadyn Torres, Jonathan Noel, Samantha R. Rosenthal, Kelsey Gately, Samantha Borden

Student Research Design & Innovation Symposium

Background: Existing literature on driving under the influence during adolescence is sparse, especially for driving under the influence of non-medical prescription drugs (DUIP). This study examines the prevalence of driving under the influence of alcohol (DUIA), cannabis (DUIC), and DUIP, and examines the role of several potential risk and protective factors. Methods: This was a secondary analysis of the 2022 Rhode Island Study Survey, a cross-sectional survey of middle and high school students. Results: Among lifetime users, prevalence of DUIA, DUIC, and DUIP was 4.9%, 14.3%, and 16.9%, respectively. Current substance use, high individual risk perception, being non-White, and being …

Phenotypic Analysis Of Csld Genes In P. Patens, Kaitlyn Freeman

Student Research Design & Innovation Symposium

The moss Physcomitrum patens is an attractive model organism, due to its small genome and dominant haploid phase. P. patens has eight genes that form a family known as the Cellulose Synthase-Like Ds (CSLDs). A previous study using global knockdown of the entire PpCSLD family by RNA interference (RNAi) showed a decrease in protonemal tip growth, indicating that PpCSLDs play a role in protonemal growth. In order to study the roles of specific CSLDs in P. patens development, triple knockout mutants for PpCSLD3/4/5 were generated by CRISPR/Cas9 mutagenesis. Plant cell walls help plants deal with osmotic stress. Therefore a salt …

Physcomitrium Patens Csld Functional Analysis, Henry Purnell

Student Research Design & Innovation Symposium

Due to its small genome and dominant haploid life stage, Physcomitrium patens (formerly Physcomitrella patens) has become a model organism for studying plant genetics. The focus of this study was the Cellulose Synthase gene superfamily of P.patens, specifically the Cellulose Synthase-Like Ds (CSLD) family of genes. Previous studies into CSLD genes were preformed using RNA interference (RNAi) to preform a loss of function analysis on the entire PpCSLD gene family. The loss of function of the CSLD gene family resulted in inhibited protonemal tip growth indicating the CSLD gene family may regulate protonema formation. To further study the function of …

Protect The Kid Influencers, Taelyce Depina

Student Research Design & Innovation Symposium

Since the days of Shirly Temple, Hollywood has been tasked with the care of children thrust into the spotlight. Hollywood is usually filled with kids being forced into adult situations, missing out on a normal childhood, and developing severe trauma because of fame despite the many laws protecting them. However, these laws have not evolved to protect the modern-day child actors, kid influencers. Kid influencers are children who perform in videos that are posted on social media platforms for millions of people to see. They earn money through sponsored posts and views rather than being paid by a single corporation. …

Harm Reduction And Common Sense, Ryan Koch, Evan Smarinsky, Jessica Tardif, Christina Vasquez, Erin Thompson, Ju Nyeong Park

Student Research Design & Innovation Symposium

In 2022, over 100,000 people in the US died of drug overdose, with the majority of these deaths occurring without a bystander present. People who use drugs alone are at high risk for fatal overdoses. Sensors designed to alert responders to a potential overdose detect the reduction of micro-movements (e.g., respiratory distress) in single-occupancy bathrooms. Naloxone and harm reduction practices are commonsense implementations to reduce overdose deaths in our community.  Since January 2023, we conducted 70 structured surveys to organizations in overdose hotspots across eight townships in Rhode Island. Sites surveyed were categorized into food service, gas/service stations, housing facilities, …

Adversity In Childhood And Resilience Among Sgms, Katie Owen, Nicholas Matta, Emma Lipinski

Student Research Design & Innovation Symposium

This study will analyze data from the Health of Sexual & Gender Minorities Study (HSGMS) to determine if there is an association between adverse childhood experiences (ACE) and resiliency in sexual and gender minorities (SGMs). Understanding the impact of childhood adversity on resilience is essential for developing effective interventions, promoting mental health, and creating supportive environments that empower SGMs to overcome the unique challenges that they often face. Our hypothesis is that there will be a negative correlation between adverse childhood experiences and resiliency among SGMs. The HSGMS is a quantitative, cross-sectional study conducted via a digital survey hosted on …

Partnered Status And Substance Misuse In Sgm, Carli Giacopelli, Jordan Suarez, Noella Ginolfi

Student Research Design & Innovation Symposium

The purpose of this research project is to examine the relationship between partner status and substance misuse. We believe that single persons have a higher likelihood of substance misuse compared to other relationship status.We focused specifically on binge drinking, cannabis misuse, and cigarette smoking. The partner status that we focus on are no partner (single), causal, monogamy, consensual non-monogamy, and non-consensual monogamy. The goal of this study is to see the association between different relationship statuses and different kinds of substance misuse, using a large nationwide sample of sexual and gender minority persons.